Help a nUb choose a compatible PSU please!

N

nathcrow

Geek Trainee
I have decided to upgrade my gfx card to a geforce 6800gs and also to upgrade to 1 gig of RAM, however I have just discovered that I have a rather pathetic 250W PSU in my PC atm, obviously this will be nowhere near sufficient to cope with the upgrade.

Being relatively new to poking around inside my PC I had just managed to find my way through the minefield of buying the correct RAM, I have decided which gfx card my mobo will take and now another spanner in the works.....

Anyhow, can anyone advise me on buying a PSU, is it the same minefield of compatability that everything else inside my PC seems to be?, or will any PSU work with any mobo/CPU/chassis (lol, as if!)

I have a Packard Bell imedia 5041 Danube

my mobo is
Columbia V (GA-8SIML-NF5) Ver 2.0
Type: µATX motherboard
Manufacturer: Gigabyte


CPU
Intel Celeron 2.4 GHz


Chassis is HERE
 
Well, the case doesn't look like any wierd sort of custom job. Any ATX compatible power supply will work.

The Antec TruePower 450W PSU's and higher, Enermax EG375AX (370W), Enermax EG565P-VE, or Hiper 450W units (the Type-R's are better) are your best bets (I'm assuming you're in the UK) given your location.
 
A guy on another forum says that µATX means micro ATX and that I need a micro ATX PSU, which i'm having a lot of trouble trackling down over 300W
 
He's wrong. Micro ATX motherboards can use ATX power supplies. mATX (µATX) power supplies conform to the same standards as ATX power supplies. Generall, mATX motherboards aren't used in high-power applications, so mATX specific power supplies don't have a lot of wattage. If your case isn't as long as a standard ATX case, then an mATX power supply might be necessary because it's shorter.

The physical power connection on mATX and ATX motherboards is 20-pin or 24-pin. Almost all 24-pin power supplies can detach the last 4-pins, so getting one is not going to pose a problem.

mATX power supplies only differ from ATX power supplies in the depth.
You could get a regular ATX case and put the mATX motherboard in there without issue, as the mATX boards are just a little shorter than full ATX ones. You don't loose too much (2-3 expansion slots and some extra PCB realestate).
 
Packard Bells w/site says my chassis is a "Chrome µATX Chassis", does this not mean it won't take a standard ATX PSU as it will be to big?

If this is the case would THIS do the job, its from the US so would it be ok to use it in the UK?


(why has everything gotten so damn complicated, AGP or PCI-E, DDR or SDRAM, ATA or SATA, ATX or microATX. In my day you either had a Spectrum or a C64, you put your tape in and after 10 minute s of loading away you went.)
 
$71 is a helluva lot for a 350W unit. I don't think it would work because I don't see where it works on 230/240V systems like you have in the UK. Try eBuyer or Komplett for better results.

Most mATX cases will accept a standard size ATX power supply. Unless PB is using some really oddball case, it should fit. No promises, but unless you'd get an extra long unit (like that Topower or a PC Power & Cooling).
 
Antec PSU's kick ass check this but personally i'm on a tight budget so i got a Tagen TG330 1U, if you can afford it, get an antec
 
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